Collaborating with INDUSTRY PARTNERS

GridSmartCity Cooperative

As a GridSmartCity Cooperative (GSCC) partner, Burlington Hydro has the means to seek out efficiencies and ways of finding cost savings by pooling best practices and resources with 13 like-minded Local Distribution Company (LDC) partners. The partnership fosters relationships that naturally encourage synergies with local governments, while contributing to a shared desire to work together to build strong, sustainable communities.

GridSmartCity’s strength, and ultimately its success, is based on its ability to share resources, insights and systems that help run smarter companies, while advancing innovation, reliability and effiiency. It’s a business model that provides Burlington Hydro with greater opportunities to collaborate and share knowledge and expertise:

• Working together to achieve scale efficiencies and purchasing power.

• Leveraging local ownership to set the gold standard for service, reliability and responsiveness.

• Implementing innovative solutions for the benefit of customers.

• Increasing efficiency and reducing operating costs.

In 2022, GSCC purchasing agreements were in place for transformers and poles, in addition to joint GSC RFPs for hardware that helped to secure the best possible pricing/product availability for the group.

GSCC is well suited to help realize the full potential of a multitude of opportunities, while preparing for industry change:

• Balancing distributed energy resource benefits with implementation complexity and cost;

• Protecting and improving electricity reliability through the convergence of electric vehicles; and,

• Helping deal with the broadening cyber security landscape.